Treading Dangerous Ground

How do you recognize Rift Valley Fever in cattle if you’ve never seen it before? I see a lot of animals during the course of a week, and I constantly worry that I’m going to be the veterinarian who makes the next issue of JAVMA as the one who missed an exotic disease. I like having posters and other such information right at hand, to remind me of the potential for such diseases. Unfortunately, this is no small poster, and I don’t really have a place to put it except for the door that separates my office from the minion’s area. The door is solid wood, and won’t take a thumbtack. I suppose I could tape the poster up, but for some reason that strikes me as tacky looking and somewhat unprofessional. Then again, this is the woman who has Gumbies, Dr. Mr. Potatohead and magnetic poetry all over her office. I don’t suppose a little tape on a poster is going to ruin the effect. The rubber ducky on my monitor doesn’t seem to think so anyhow.

My arm/neck continue to improve daily. Adonis has given me several different exercises to do to help strengthen my neck. My muscles are going to have to take over some of the support that the backbone in my neck used to do. None of them are a big deal, except for my nemesis, the “arm bike”. Because I have muscle weakness in my right triceps from all this, my right arm simply doesn’t have much “oomph” behind its push. My left arm tends to compensate for this, and after about two minutes of arm pedaling, my left arm begins to burn. I force my right arm to kick in at this point, but it tends to give out about thirty seconds later. Until this morning, the best I’d been able to do on the “coffee grinder” machine was three minutes. Today I went the full four minutes though, mostly through learning to pace myself a little better, giving my left arm some breathing time by forcing my right to kick in a little harder every fifteen seconds or so. Still, I feel it in my arms this afternoon.

Dr. Neuron has approved a few more weeks of physical therapy for me. Adonis is going to do a reevaluation of my arm the end of next week. If I still have muscle weakness, he’s going to recommend a follow-up visit to Dr. Neuron. Keep your fingers crossed that this will not be necessary. Every doctor’s visit I have now cuts down on my chances of getting to take a vacation in August. And I need that vacation in August.

California, here I come.

Maybe.

All three of my feline charges are still currently in differing stages of the kitty sniffles. Clueless is the least affected of the three. A couple of sneezes, and he’s back to being a couch potato. Grey Menace has got the wet nose/drippy eyes syndrome, but it hasn’t affected her disposition, nor her appetite. Warrior Princess is perhaps the worst of the bunch. Last night she again went through a sneezing fit that had, by the end, produced copious amounts of Technicolor snot that she then tried to clean up herself. None of the village idiots seem to have a fever though, and all are there at the door begging for food when I come home, so I’ll just keep an eye on them for the time being. The whole caboodle of them have spent enough of my money at the real veterinarian’s for a while.

I’m doing OK at getting supporters for the walk I’ll be doing in a few weeks. A few surprise supporters have approached me, which has been a really nice feeling. They want us to collect at least $100.00 if we can, and so far I’m well on the way to that. Since my company will match the donations I collect, I should be able to hold my head up high when it comes time to turn in my collection envelope.

There are several topics I should probably avoid talking about in entries open to the public. Politics, religion, and the color of my bowel movements come immediately to mind as examples. I probably should add this next topic to the list as well, but I’ll test the waters and see how much fur flies over this (to mix two purrfectly good metaphors).

I work at a Coke corporation. No, I don’t work for Coca Cola, exactly. At least, they don’t pay me. I pay them. My employers signed some sort of contract with the Devil, and so have agreed to sell only Coke products on the premises.

Now I’m a Pepsi girl. And believe me, being in the minority has taught me a few things. Coke people can get downright obnoxious if you say or do anything to impinge the quality of their product.

And, in all honesty, I’m perfectly capable of getting a Coke down. Indeed, I have little choice unless I choose water or a fruit juice instead, and there are times I wonder if the fruit juices don’t have a Coke sticker on the carton as well. I drink it, but I dream of having my Pepsi instead.

You can imagine my delight when I discovered a year or so back that we have an illicit Pepsi machine on the premises. Hidden out back in one of the larger outbuildings, it hides in a dark recess of one of the storerooms, it’s existence known to only a few of us “insiders”. I was well content with the occasional diet Pepsi from this machine until I discovered diet Vanilla Pepsi last summer. Since my return to work last autumn, I have been pining for my diet Vanilla Pepsi, and making do with the diet Pepsi from the secret machine.

Well today I discovered the person responsible for the Secret Pepsi Machine’s maintenance. And I was able to cut a deal to get diet Vanilla Pepsi stocked next time the machine is attended to (I assume in the wee hours of the morning, when the chances are least that a stray witness will happen across the illegal activity and report it to Corporate). I love my company, but sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.